Captain Planet's Workout Journal

[Warboss Alex]

What's the point of doing two inclines for chest? Drop one and do close grip bench or skullcrushers instead of those silly extensions, hell, it'll be dumbbell kickbacks next ...

Your reps are too low - add another set and up the reps, aim for 8-10 each time to make up for sloppy form (not criticising your form here, but it takes some experience to perfect your technique, doing more reps means that the efficiency of the workout lost through poor form is more or less offset by the cumulative load).

 

[Captain Planet]

I'm doing DB sets so I can work the stabilizer muscles as my other sets are done on the smith machine. I guess I should do them flat instead. The tricep extension exercise I'm doing is this one http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/Triceps/BBLyingTriExt.html , I thought it was another name for skullcrushers but wasnt sure.

Lastly I think my form is fairly decent. On bench I keep a wideish grip and touch the bar to my chest (not bounce or rest it) each rep. With the tricep extensions, I let the bar go all the way behind my head before bringing it back up.

I like to go to failure on every set, so the second set I'm obviously more fatigued. Should I be holding back on the first set and lowering the overall weight, or keep going to failure but just lower the weight for the subsequent sets?

Thanks for your advice.

 

[Warboss Alex]

No, that's not skullcrushers, that's .. well, I dunno what that is, to be honest, looks to be a hybrid between a lat pullover and a skullcrushers, in any case, drop it for CG bench mate.

Doing incline barbell and incline dumbbell doesn't make sense to me.. better to do flat db and incline barbell instead, don't you think? Don't worry about stabilisers, they're both compound exercises that's all you need to worry about (unless when people tell you to flex, you tell 'em "Hey mate, check out my stabilisers!", lol) .. but two incline presses are far too similar and fatiguing you unnecessarily I'd say.

As for failure, well.. you might want to try rest-pausing if you like training to failure, it's extremely intense, it's training to failure on every set but there's only a 20-30 second rest between them, ask me if you want to know more.

Otherwise I personally don't like training to failure every set (for example, one set to failure, rest for 2-3 minutes, second set to failure, rest, etc), I don't believe it's a good gauge of progress.

Better to do 3 straight sets, aiming for 8-10 (or higher) reps each time, if you can get those then add weight next time.

 

[Captain Planet]

Leg and Shoulder day

My squat form has improved a fair bit but still not going all the way down. I think its more of a CNS thing than lack of phsycial muscle, I still have a bit of trouble balancing when I get down low and end up putting too much weight on my toes.

Military press I'm definately going to keep on leg day from now on. The sets today went up pretty easy and I should be able to up the weight to 32.5 KG next week.

Military Press
25 KG X 10
30 KG x 8
30 KG x 8

Squats
30 KG x 8
40 KG x 8
40 KG x 8
40 KG x 8

Standing Calf Raises
80 KG x 10
80 KG x 8
90 KG x 6 ( weight becoming really uncomfortable on my shoulders)

SLDL
40 KG x 8
50 KG x 6 (Too wrecked from the squats to continue)

BTW thanks for your reply Alex, I'm gonna give the CG bench press a shot next chest/tri day. Just out of interest what exactly are skullcrushers? Ive tried googling it but cant find an actual description or video. Also I think I'll stick to regular sets for now instead of doing RP's.

 

[simon]

http://www.theministryoffitness.com/mof/mofpics/anims/skullcrush.gif

 

[Captain Planet]

Back / Bicep Day

BB curls
30.5 KG x 8
30.5 KG x 7
30.5 KG x 4

Lat pulldown
120 lbs x 9
120 lbs x 7

Deadlift
60 KG x 8
70 KG x 6
72.5 KG x 5

Wondering how you guys do deadlifts, do you do a single rep, regrip and repeat, or hold the bar the whole time? If its the latter do you touch the bar on the floor or stop a few inches above it? Currently I'm holding the bar the bar for the full set and stopping half an inch above the floor.

More importantly Ive decided I should start a "cutting cycle" for the next few weeks. I have some excess flab I really want to get rid of and it will help me keep motivated in the future as I'll actually be able to see my bulking gains.

I only want to do a short cut to get my waist from 35.5 inches to 33-33.5 inches. My weight routine will be exactly the same, I'll just be increasing the cardio and reducing a little the non protein foods. Ive also bought an E/C/A stack off the net which should help speed up the results so I can get back to bulking again.

I think I'll still keep making progress on the squats and deadlifts since I'm a complete beginner at those. For the rest of the excercises I'll just try to not let my weights drop off.

 

[Warboss Alex]

Originally posted by Captain Planet
Back / Bicep Day

BB curls
30.5 KG x 8
30.5 KG x 7
30.5 KG x 4

Lat pulldown
120 lbs x 9
120 lbs x 7

Deadlift
60 KG x 8
70 KG x 6
72.5 KG x 5

Wondering how you guys do deadlifts, do you do a single rep, regrip and repeat, or hold the bar the whole time? If its the latter do you touch the bar on the floor or stop a few inches above it? Currently I'm holding the bar the bar for the full set and stopping half an inch above the floor.

More importantly Ive decided I should start a "cutting cycle" for the next few weeks. I have some excess flab I really want to get rid of and it will help me keep motivated in the future as I'll actually be able to see my bulking gains.

I only want to do a short cut to get my waist from 35.5 inches to 33-33.5 inches. My weight routine will be exactly the same, I'll just be increasing the cardio and reducing a little the non protein foods. Ive also bought an E/C/A stack off the net which should help speed up the results so I can get back to bulking again.

I think I'll still keep making progress on the squats and deadlifts since I'm a complete beginner at those. For the rest of the excercises I'll just try to not let my weights drop off.

Deadlifts: I let the bar go or at least touch it to the floor, hence a literal 'dead'lift, the bar stops moving and there's no momentum involved whatsoever.

Bulking/cutting: absolute nonsense. You get caught in that web, and you'll be wasting half your time in the gym. You won't gain anything while you go on a traditional 'cut', what gains will there be for you to see?

Wait 3 months with what you're doing, I bet you your waist will have reduced somewhat. When it stops getting smaller then consider some form of cardio to help reduce it some more.

E/C/A: never used it, never needed it, waste of money if you're not a competing bodybuilder.

 

[Double]

ECA for speeding up results is ****, for not feeling that damn much hungry it is good.

 

[Captain Planet]

My life's been really messed up the last 2 weeks and I fell off the wagon so to speak. My diet went to complete crap, like 150g of protein a day and I stopped going to the gym. On the upside I've lost an inch from my gut and my stomach's almost completely flat.

Anyway I'm trying to get back into it again.. these are my last two workouts.

Bicep Curl
28 KG x 7
28 KG x 7

Lat Pulldowns
120 lbs x 8
130 lbs x 8

Deadlifts
60 KG x 10
60 KG x 8
70 KG x 6
80 KG x 5

Straight leg deads
50 KG x 8
50 KG x 8
50 KG x 8

Military Press
30 KG x 8
30 KG x 7 and a half

Squats
40 KG x 8
50 KG x 8
50 KG x 8

My curls have gone down, my MP stayed about the same and everything else has seemed to go up a little.